For Music Can Make Even an Apocalypse Beautiful
by jojobevco
Summary: An one-shot outsider's view on the Fall of the Twelve Colonies, set in our near future.


For Music Can Even Make an Apocalypse Beautiful

By Jojobevco

Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to the Battlestar _Galactica_ story or characters. I do, however, reserve the rights for any characters I develop and the plot of this story.

AN: This was a story I created for a writing class I'm taking, which I adopted away from BSG. Now, I've changed it back to BSG. This story covers the events of "The Plan."

My name is Joseph Maddox and I hate my job.

To be more specific, my name is Doctor Joseph Maddox, Director of Apocalyptic Events at the United States Temporal Observatory and I hate my job. The job itself is rather simple; I travel back in time to various civilizations both on Earth and other planets and watch them end. It is one of the hardest jobs at the Observatory, because all my predecessors either became severely depressed or went insane.

Today, I read a memo from the Archeology Department, apparently they found evidence of a space faring civilization 140,000 years ago. Interestingly, the civilization was spread over a single solar system containing 14 planets, twelve of which were inhabited. All the evidence pointed to the planets simultaneously dying out from "multiple events of a nuclear nature" (Translation: someone nuked them out of existence). Therefore, it fell into my jurisdiction.

I was tired of "multiple events of a nuclear nature," this was the third in a row. The first one was a single planet 147,000 years ago, the next another single planet 143,000 years ago. The timing of these events is very peculiar, in the space of 7,000 years, three different civilizations had been wiped out in the same manner.

Grumbling about nukes and radiation, I hopped in my small, one bedroom ship and headed out to the system in the memo. After briefly speaking to the Archeologist in charge of the site, I lit up the big dish on the top of my ship that took me back in time 140,000 years. When I arrived, I almost rammed a cargo ship.

I always traveled back to the day before the event; it was a good way to gather intel about what the civilization was like directly before it was destroyed. Unfortunately, this leads to some hazards when dealing with interstellar civilizations, I tend to almost run into a lot of things. Luckily, the ship doesn't notice me, thanks to the other dish I have that acts like a cloaking field from an old Earth TV Show. So I just gently float into the system, swooping down into the atmosphere of the capital planet and flying at a low altitude, taking readings and images of the civilization.

I pass over a market where people are haggling over the price of vegetables, I fly next to a park where children, are playing on swing sets. These people, they mean nothing to me, they will be dead in a few hours, dead in a blinding flash of light and intense heat. At least, that's what I try to tell myself.

After visiting the other planets I've made some conclusions. The civilization, known as "The Twelve Colonies of Kobol," is polytheistic in nature, spread over twelve worlds, they have a space military power due to a standard Artificial Intelligence uprising. Their technological level is a bit confusing, they have faster than light travel capability, yet they still drive cars on their planets. The population of this civilization: 20 Billion.

I go back into space and wait, flipping on the music. I love watching apocalypses set to music, it's a way of distancing myself from it, instead of watching a civilization die, it's almost like watching a movie. After glancing through my various playlists I select what I call, "Epic New Age Gregorian Chant Rock Stuff," or that music from people like Enya and Era, as well as those epic movie soundtracks from people like John Williams, or Bear Mc Creary. It's music that just goes well with the end of the world.

I wait for the event that sets off the powder keg that destroys them all. It's usually a little thing, some little insignificant international incident that ends them. This time, however, I was wrong. Suddenly dozens of ships appeared out of nowhere and surrounded the planet. Apparently, someone else was doing the nuking today. I start laughing; they have the planet completely surrounded.

I sit back, watch and listen, for some reason them music doesn't sound depressing and epic as it usually does, instead it sound happy and epic. I have no idea why, it's the same music I always listen to, but today, it sounds different.

A few of the about to be dead civilization's warships valiantly head toward the massive fleet. Then, the enemy ships, which look rather strange, almost like broken diamonds, transmit some sort of signal that turn off the valiant and heroic warships. I smile, clearly these enemies have thought of everything. Then the enemy begins launching the nukes, hundreds of them slowly fall through the atmosphere. I run a quick scan on one of them as it launches.

Each of the ballistic missiles the ships launch contains thirty-six nuclear warheads. The enemy launched hundreds of missiles and that means thousands of warheads. I always love a good, absolute, crushing overkill. It's funny, and awesome to watch. As the music reaches its crescendo the flashes started, in a blink of the eye, millions of people were wiped out.

As the music came to a close so did the action, the attacking ships started spreading out through the solar system, attacking whatever life remained. Some of the civilian ships made it away, out of the system, but they weren't my responsibility, I wouldn't get to see if they succeeded or failed, no, that was the job of the Interstellar Migration Department.

As I start to head home I turn on some jazz and throw back my head laughing. I just watched a civilization end and I don't care, because of the music, because I don't notice. Am I a horrible person or do I just do what's necessary to get the job done?

My name is Joseph Maddox and I hate my job.

AN: If you want to see the music video this is based off of its on youtube, video ID:

watch?v=_39avaboNTI


End file.
